The Beggar's Opera

Synopsis

Havel's version of John Gay's classic is slightly atypical in that there isn't a beggar in sight and that there are no songs. However, the play shares the gritty London setting of the original and deals with many of the same themes.

Our Review:

20 January 2003

In Vaclav Havel's songless version of John Gay's anti-opera, there is no opera. Nor is the show aimed at 'beggars' (or the common people), but at intellectual dissident sympathisers. For Havel (lately President of the Czech Republic) was a severe critic of the harsh Soviet influence which followed the 1968 invasion of his homeland. After much privation during these years, he was resurrected as a hero when the Eastern bloc collapsed.

Unlike the Brecht/Weill 1928 spin on the same material (in The Threepenny Opera), which was a voluble in-yer-face critique on capitalism, Havel attacks the oppressive communist regime that entrapped him. In a way then, Havel's play is the antithesis of Brecht.

The usual suspects remain - Lockit (the corrupt police chief), Peacham (the traitorous crime boss) and Macheath (the amorous carpetbagger) - but, while thieves and villains they may all still be, here they represent different aspects of Havel's own life and times. Lockit (played ...

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